Tombstone
by Twinings
Summary: And this meant goodbye.
1. Chapter 1

Author's note: Last night I had a dream about a tombstone that read, "THE RIDDLER, 1927-1956" and Robin saying, "And nobody even noticed."

I woke up sad.

I don't own these peoples. Sadness, sadness.

* * *

It was weird.

Don't ask me what I was doing in Gotham City Cemetery in the middle of the night. Don't get me wrong, I like night. In the _city._ When there are lights.

Out there in the boonies, you can barely see the lights. Oh, sure, there are stars, and the moon, but that's hardly the same thing. And besides, that night a storm was brewing, clouds covered everything in the sky except for one or two flickers of lightning off in the distance, and the wind was making that creepy whistling sound it only makes in really bad horror stories. I guess I don't need to mention that the dead tree branches were clicking together like dry bones.

It's times like these I miss the old days. Working for the Riddler, I never had to leave the city. And I liked him, I really did. I was just a lowly henchgirl, not his main squeeze, never in on the planning, but I still felt like I was a part of things. And apparently, he thought pretty well of me, because after the day he disappeared off the face of the earth, I was the first one picked up by another gang. And I've shuffled between bosses ever since. Every time one of them goes back to Arkham, I move on. The Joker, the Penguin, yeah, I've worked for them all. But he was my favorite.

And of course, this month it would be the Scarecrow. It was my first time with him, and I don't think he was all that impressed. It's not that I'm a coward…there are just some things that bother me. Yeah, we'll go with that.

When I got separated from the rest, I didn't quite know what to do. You-know-who might be watching, and I didn't want to lead him back to the boss's hideout. But I didn't know where the others were. That was kind of the point; they were going back by a route that was _difficult_ to find.

So I figured I would go to the cemetery. It wasn't too far away, and if I had any shadowy followers, they would have to get bored watching me weep over some grave and move on to better targets.

And then I got myself creeped out. Some henchman I was. No wonder the Scarecrow wasn't impressed. Maybe this was a sign that it was time to quit. (Not quit altogether, mind you. Just go back to working for the Joker, maybe.)

I managed to stay until I was fairly sure there was nobody watching me, though. (If there's one thing I'm good at, it's watching the watchmen.)

Only, when I got up to leave, I saw that there was someone coming, so I ducked back behind my tombstone. He was being stealthy, but not stalking anything—just trying not to be seen, same as me. And pretty soon I figured out why.

This was Nightwing, former Boy Wonder. (Not everyone knows that, but, hey, you don't work for the Riddler without learning a thing or two.)

And he was carrying a handful of daisies.

That was so weird, I just had to stick around and see what he did with them.

There was no weeping or hysterics. Not even any real grief, as far as I could tell. All he did was stop and lay the flowers on a grave, make a gesture that was something like a respectful salute, and turn and walk away.

How very, very strange. Did the grave belong to someone he knew? A friend, a family member?

I had to find out who he was visiting. That would be the clue that led me to his true identity, and how could I resist a puzzle like that?

So when he left, I crept up to the grave and saw, to my surprise…

No name. At least, not his real name.

Just "The Riddler," along with the year of his birth and the year of his death.

Just the way he would have wanted it. An enigma to the very end.

No one knew how he had died. I hadn't even been sure that he really was dead.

But the tombstone made it real. They wouldn't have put one up if they weren't sure.

Which meant I was standing over his corpse. Ew. I jumped away, over to the side, where I wouldn't be…on anything.

And this meant goodbye.

Or did it?

"Thanks, Nightwing," I whispered. "The flowers are nice." It was good to know that he was missed by someone other than me, even if the person who missed him hadn't actually liked him.

I had liked him, and I still wasn't ready to say goodbye.

I dug around in my pocket until I found an old tube of lipstick. It wasn't green, but it would have to do.

I drew a big pink question mark after the year of his death.

I think he would have liked that.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's note: Crap. I had another Dead Eddums dream, and woke up sad again. Now that I know what happened to him, this story has a plot and I'm going to have to continue it. Curses.

Don't be surprised if the person who did it gets set on fire. My dream was particularly unpleasant.

* * *

I went back to the Scarecrow. I couldn't just skip out on him, and I felt pretty safe about not being followed.

I tried to be very calm and rational as I explained to him what had gone wrong on the job, how I got separated from the others, and the steps I took to get back to him afterwards. I made no mention of Nightwing or the Riddler. And then I logically laid out the reasons why I didn't think I should work for him anymore. I didn't mention that he scared the hell out of me, because of course that's what he wanted, and it wasn't a very good reason to leave him.

I tried to be calm, but honestly, just talking to him was one of the hardest things I've ever done, and telling him something he wasn't going to like made it that much worse.

I made sure to do this away from the other guys, so he wouldn't have to lose face if he did decide to let me go. I saw someone try to split from the Joker once in full view of the rest of the gang…trust me, the Joker didn't take that well at all.

And guess who had to be the one to mop it up. That's right, Claire Stone, hench wench extraordinaire.

Like some guy called Big Harry can't work a mop just as well as I can. Honestly, I'd hate to see how some of these guys lived if they didn't have me around to pick up after them.

Well, lucky for me, the Scarecrow handled rejection a lot better than the Joker did. And lucky for the lair, too, because I doubt any of that particular gang would even know how to clean up my splatters.

He didn't even gas me.

Oh, he also didn't _pay_ me, which is a little unfair—after all, I did do my part in the heist. But I decided not to press my luck.

So I was back out on the street, momentarily a free woman, not much worse off than I had been the day before.

Until I got mugged, that is.

That's right, mugged.

You'd think someone who'd spent the last five years shuffling around as Henchman Number Three for every major villain in Gotham would be immune to that kind of thing. Not me. Not lucky little me.

Stupid city.


	3. Chapter 3

Author's note: These dreams are freaking me out. Am I going to have recurring nightmares about the poor dead Riddler until I finish this story? First the Frank Gorshin Riddler, then the Animated Series Riddler, then the Robert Englund Riddler. What version of him will die a horrible death in my dreams next?

* * *

Do you have any idea how humiliating it is to get mugged by someone you know? This guy lived next door to me until I was eleven. He and my older brother used to rob gas stations after school. Once they even took me along.

I guess I grew up.

He took my money. No big deal. I might not have had much, but there's always more where that came from.

When he looked like he wanted something else, I threatened to tell his mother. And, trust me, that's no small threat. I know his mother.

So, that left me alone, on the street, in the middle of the night, broke. Hey, I've been worse off.

At least I wasn't a kid anymore.

When I first went to work for the Riddler, I was eleven years old. I told him I was fifteen, but he didn't buy it. I figured stuffing my bra and wearing some of my sister's makeup would be enough to make me look older. Maybe I should have tried it on the Joker, because all it did was make me look like a clown.

Thing is, at eleven, I was scared to death of the Joker.

Not the Riddler, though. I thought he was handsome, and he looked like my father. How I would know that, I don't know, because I never met the guy, and the only picture there was of him was an old black and white snapshot of him and Mom from ten years before I was born. But he (the Riddler, I mean, not my father) did look kind of like my oldest brother. Tommy had those same kind of eyes, and a smile that could make babies cry.

So I went to the Riddler because, for some reason, I thought he would be nice and let me work for him. He told me to come back when I was older.

So I waited a month, and came back the day after my birthday.

He couldn't deny that I was older then.

And since he was short a henchman or two, he decided to let me stick around and prove myself.

That went well.

But I ended up staying, anyway.


End file.
